Governor Bill Lee said Saturday that the special session he called for on April 21 in the wake of the Covenant Presbyterian School shooting to push through a package of gun control measures dubbed “red flag laws” will likely convene after the July 4th holiday.
“There is broad agreement that dangerous, unstable individuals who intend to harm themselves or others should not have access to weapons,” he said in his original April statement.
While there may be agreement on the issue in principle, many lawmakers doubt that the legislature will find consensus with the governor on the solutions, citing, in part, the refusal by officials to release the writings seized by law enforcement – commonly referred to as a “manifesto” – by the killer, Audrey Elizabeth Hale, directly following the March 27th attack.
“We cannot possibly address this horrific situation until we know what was in [Hale’s] manifesto,” House Republican Caucus Chairman Jeremy Faison (R-Cosby) said.
State Representative Scott Cepicky (R-Culleoka) said he is concerned that convening the special session without first gathering more information would improperly rush the process.
Cepicky told The Tennessee Star that one of the General Assembly’s concerns was that in identifying what policy issue to address, they must first have access to “all the proper information” from the Covenant Presbyterian School shooting which sparked the conversation: “the manifesto, the toxicology report of the shooter, a testimony from law enforcement [as to] what the manifesto means, a testimony from mental health as to the mental status of the shooter.”
Once the General Assembly has that information, he said, “then we can make a logical decision of what problem are we trying to fix.”
Cepicky applauded the Governor’s office’s recent announcement of a potentially delayed start to the special session, saying that he thinks “the Governor’s staff has realized that in order to make a good decision, we have to have good information.”
“My gut feeling is once we have all that information,” he said, “I think that’s when we would be called back into session.”
But some key lawmakers have called the governor’s gun control efforts a “non-starter.”
State Senator Jack Johnson (R-Franklin) told The Star, “I have always opposed red flag laws, and I continue to oppose red flag laws. I don’t think they have shown to be effective and I think they infringe upon the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens.”
Johnson did express optimism about the legislature reaching some solution to make Tennesseans safer. “I do think that there is an opportunity for us to further look into how we deal with mental health, specifically people who are in a mental health crisis, and ensure that they have access to the mental health treatment that they need. I think that the conversation needs to be directed more towards the delivery of mental health services, and less about infringing upon constitutional rights,” he told The Star.
State Representative Rusty Grills (R-Newbern) told The Star that “we are trying to fix spiritual problems with physical solutions.” He argued that “before we take an individual’s constitutional right away from them, it needs to have the highest judicial scrutiny. It’s not just something we should do out of fear.” Representative Grills also contended that the issue at hand was the perpetrator’s mental health, not the instrument used in the crime.
State Director of the Tennessee Faith and Freedom Coalition Aaron Gulbransen has qualms having a special session at all, saying that it could bring a continuance of the unruly protesting on Capitol Hill. He told The Star that “[t]he potential for Leftist violence is very real. We saw this repeatedly in 2020…[Governor Lee] is simply dead wrong to align with the Far Left on this push for a special session and turn Nashville into a powder keg.”
However, not all lawmakers oppose the governor’s proposals. State Representative John Gillespie (R-Memphis) said that he supports what he called the Governor’s “modified red flag law,” as it would “protect the community by removing guns from he mentally ill.”
Similarly, State Representative Mark White (R-Memphis) told Action News 5 Memphis that he is “ready to go back into the special session to look at everything. I think we owe it to the citizens of Tennessee to do something.”
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Mac Roberts is a reporter at The Tennessee Star. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Scott Cepicky” by State Representative Scott Cepicky. Photo “Jeremy Faison” by Ncrawford604. CC BY-SA 4.0. Photo “Rusty Grills” by State Representative Rusty Grills. Background Photo “Tennessee State Capitol” by FaceMePLS. CC BY 2.0.
Editor’s note: Aaron Gulbransen was previously a reporter at The Tennessee Star.
The session should be canceled not postponed. Mr. Lee is barking up the wrong tree with his red flag proposal. How about trying to enforce the myriad of existing laws and eliminating early release from jail/prison? What a loser.